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Boswell continues to reward Angelos

This morning on Twitter, I saw it mentioned that Thomas Boswell wrote a column about the Baltimore Orioles, having visited their spring training. I didn’t view it, because giving page views to that sort of thing would be rewarding bad behavior.

Sigh.

Of all people, Boswell should have stopped covering the O’s the moment that Peter Angelos voted “no” on D.C. baseball. I challenged him to it in a chat today:

How about sticking to the team with WASHINGTON on their uniforms?
Apparently, you wrote a column from Peter Angelos’ spring training today — why? You of all people should have dropped coverage of his team the moment he voted “no” on DC baseball. You said Angelos was trying to kill the Nats in the crib by keeping them off cable TV for almost 2 seasons, but you never stopped covering them. Why have your rewarded this bad behavior with coverage?

Thomas Boswell:
Everything you say is true. (Or “pretty true.”)

But I always seperate the team from the owner. Those who play and manage and do the GM job should not carry the burden of the owner. Besides, Angelos is in business, so keeping a ateam out of Washington was obvious for him. Of course, we hated it and fought it. But that’s entirely seperate from the different issue of his mismanagement of the team for a dozen years.

Besides, I’ve written a half-dozen columns on the Nats this spring and one on the Orioles (at a point when they deserve it). So, I’m comfortable with the ratio! But I never, never, never had any reaction except pure anger to the idea, all those years, of the Orioles being “a regional franchise.” Don’t know how many times Bud used the phrase.

NOTA BENE: This misspellings are Boswell’s, not mine

So, Boswell agrees with me, but contradicts himself when he says he disliked the Orioles being called “a regional franchise.”

THEN WHY DID YOU COVER THEM?!

The record shows, that when the print “champion” of bringing baseball to D.C. had a chance to stand up for and with Nats fans, he choose not to do so. Instead, he continued covering the team owned by the person who tried to stop the Washington Nationals for ever existing and then, kept them off television for the majority of viewers.

When I was 9 years old, we visited our former neighbors in their new Michigan home for Thanksgiving. According to Bruce Campbell, we didn’t celebrate the right way.

Later that weekend, we piled into the back of a Chevy station wagon (diesel even) and drove through Detroit to Windsor, Ont. just to say we went to Canada, I guess. We had McDonald’s and since it was warm, the back window was rolled down. J.J. shot spitballs onto the Canadian street. Then we got stuck in traffic crossing the Ambassador Bridge and I half-ate a Snickers.